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SATURDAY:
Good news on the scale today. That's good, since comp is one week away.
-Much time given over to moving games and books down to shelving units in new rec room.

-6 miles on treadmill. I'm working on taking my jogging pace up ever so slightly.
Shower.

-Child and I read Cornelia Funke's Reckless.

Husband had a big phone meeting. Afterward, he was not doing so great. He took a hit on his emergency inhaler, but still felt pretty ill. He actually had his head down on the dining room table for awhile. I asked if he wanted me to take him to the emergency room. He said no. He has now been sick for 97 days. Earlier in the day, he had felt good enough to take Child to her gymnastics class. (The place has moved and is only 10-15 mins away now.) But by evening, he was in sorry shape.

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hm....lessee...thurs; teach an oldies class....for the life of me, I cannot remember the rest but am pretty sure it was primarly sucked up by addressing a long outline for an upcoming meeting
fri...teach a bike and bench class....a tough one .... a 4 hour lunch with a friend ...wow...that was too long...enjoy a quiet evening with dh
sat...re-stone some spots on a few gowns, do dishes, laundry, take out trash, feed and clean up after pets, sweep and mop all upstairs floors, scrub toilets, pay bills, tan, purchase some buttons for dh's overcoat and shop for dtr's b-day, come home and spend a lot of time sync-ing things to my ipod to use at work as I am tired of using scratchy CD's and they finally set up an ipod hook up

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@ccm. Did you decide to get the awesome stiletto end table? If so, we must have pics of it beside your new Ikea sofa. Pics would be even better if ccc is seated on said sofa.

I haven't checked in in over a week. Hmm.

Highlights:

Really touching recognition meeting at work catches me completely by surprise. I got recognized for what I thought was thankless work. This is heartening, as it's work I enjoy that matters to me. Nice. Also at work, GF tells me that she has accepted a transfer to a new job. Now it's official. I'm the last member of my posse who's still there.

Home to somewhat-related long, frank discussion with twin sis, who is one of the only human beings on earth who gets to be completely frank with me without my getting defensive. Her basic message to me? "P. You are stuck. Make a decision and act on it. Or make a decision NOT to act. But stop believing your own rationalizations." IOW, in the AA vernacular, "Pee or get off the pot." I needed to hear this. What I find noteworthy, though, is that, even while I'm hearing this hard truth, I feel unconditionally loved. I have a great family. I make a decision. Quite a relief, actually.

DS is leaning toward not accepting the internship with his Dad this summer. I decide to let DS choose. Honestly, I will be relieved if he doesn't go. As stressful as single motherhood is, the weeks DS spends with his father are so much worse for me. I don't get a mental break. I remember what DS's father was like to live with, so I invariably spend those weeks waiting for shoe after shoe to drop. And of course, they do. Lots of shoes. *sigh*

Check in with Mom. Older sister's move to S Carolina is almost complete. Mom and Dad will have my sister and niece two minutes away. This is a relief, but I have to admit I am jealous.

SAT test prep with DS. My initial assessment is that what will help him is very low-key prep, spread over a long period of time. If I wait and sign him up for one of those short courses close to his test date, DS will stress out. So back to edhelper we go. It's a really inexpensive place to get unlimited worksheets and prep materials. Forty bucks a year is not bad. IIRC, you can print out up to seventy pages a day. That and a couple SAT-prep courses and he should be fine. SMU offers a summer course. The school district offers one during the school year. I will sign his up for both.

Pick out a new cell phone. Mine's been missing for a while and I kept hoping it would show up. But no. So, since I'm eligible for an upgrade and DS ticked me off by grousing when I borrowed his phone one too many times, I pick a new phone. 4G. All the bells and whistles. International dialing. Nice. Nicer than DS's phone, IMO. And free with a two-year contract. Much better than making an insurance claim. The claim would cost me a $100 deductible and I'd have no choice of phone. This way, I get what I want for free.

Pull curtain of charity over conversation with DS about the cell phone. In this conversation, I have to pull out the old chestnut, "I don't care how old you are. I will always be your mother. There will always be lines you cannot cross with me." I can't remember ever having had to say this to DS before but I feel perfectly justified in saying it now. He doesn't have to like it. He does have to treat me with respect.

Up almost all night last night. Something in me has changed and I feel energized. I spend hours watching Byron Katie videos on youtube. For some reason, The Work clicks for me this time in a way that it never did before. Decide to attend her webinar dealie that will be held on Wednesday, just to see if it's what I want to do next. I think it's time for me to work on some spiritual goals. Nice.

Write down some goals, spiritual and otherwise, then attempt to get a nap before the day begins.

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SUNDAY:
Continued work on arranging things onto new shelves in rec room and re-organizing Child's book collection generally. Entire series grouped together--YAY!

Put sesame-ginger chicken in crock pot.

Read Reckless to Child.

Finish off sesame-ginger chicken sauce. Store it for dinner.

Go get my hair colored. I kind of let it go over the break, but now school is starting, I have a dance comp coming up, and VagMon is coming up as well!

A little keyed up over first day of school, first time teaching FOUR different classes in one day, and uncertainty about the weather and what that will mean for me and for Child.
-->As it turns out (since I am writing this on Monday): Child's school has a 1 hr delay (opening at 9:20) and the college is opening at 10 AM (which means my 9:10 AM class is cancelled, and I will start the day with my 10:20 class). That still works.

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I used to get especially annoyed if I was teaching two sections of the same course at 9:10 and 10:20. There are pluses and minuses to teaching two of the exact same class, and clearly one of the biggest pluses is that you only have to prepare one lesson plan! This is less brilliant, however, when the two classes don't stay in sync.

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The only thing I found noteworthy enough to remember and share is a Piers Morgan interview with Tony Robbins, in which Robbins talked about a phenomenon called "post traumatic growth," in which people who've been through devastating experiences emerge from their grief, find something larger than themselves, and grow beyond anything they could have imagined for themselves. The interview also featured a couple of people -- one high school kid who was paralyzed in a school shooting and an ex-Marine who suffered from post traumatic stress disorder, who have gone on to build wonderful lives of service.

This hit me hard, but in a good way. I'll have to do some research on post-traumatic growth. I've known for some time that it exists. One example is the Missouri Mom whose son died and who went on to form, in his honor, a foundation that rescues kids from slavery and young women from the sex industry. (I met her. She is something else!) http://www.oprah dot com/oprahshow/Sold-into-Slavery/11

To say that I find this inspirational is an understatement. I also find the timing interesting, for reasons that I have no doubt I'll share eventually.

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Hug DS on entrance into our home. Note to him how proud of his self-accomplished large paver driveway he did at his first home....then...."can you do one for us?" he laughed.....pooey.
GS#2 comes over,,,oh my....how tall are we? pencil line on wall with his name.
Go over notes on my step-father, health and other issues.
Caused by phone calls telling me he fell 7 times last week at various places.
ok, "no driving for you" my mind says.
Head up the hill, find step-father laying on sofa "getting his strength back" he says.
hmmm, I say.
I know he'll come clean with me if I just stay silent and sit with him.
Surely, he does. He bares his soul - this is new.
I listen.
Really listen.
Poor him.
Run errands for him, discuss recent his most loved tennis matches, neighbor approaches me in driveway about my step-father and his falling in house, driveway and at grocery store parking lot.
Game plan churns in brain on drive back down to my house.
Cancel competition plans, keep lessons and coaching.
Call step-dad, hey, how would you like me to spend a few days with you and we'll come up with a game plan together. He jumps at that.
Inform DH not to come up with me - this is better if I'm alone.
This is not my first rodeo with this, and I thank God, that my early career years were with the elderly during my medical training.
Clean and pack for the next few days.

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Oh. I'm so sorry. When elders start falling, it is definitely time to do something.

Both my paternal grandmother and one of my Dad's sisters had serious falls while in the house alone. Both ended up with broken hips (The doctors were not sure whether the break caused the fall or vice versa.) Neither of them ever walked again. But, what's worse is that both of them spent quite a few hours on the floor in their homes, in pain and unable to call for help.

You have to do something. And, from the perspective of a friend and admirer of yours, thank you so much for being there for him. I know that having someone to count on means a lot to him. *hugs*

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MONDAY:
FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL--Spring 2013!
Dear Brain/Body: You are 45 years old. You have been doing first days of school since you were 3, when you went to nursery school. It's cute but also a little concerning that you still tend to wake up at 4 AM thinking "Is it time yet?!" Luckily, I managed to fall back to sleep.

6:30--Got up for real. Discovered the college has a 2 hour delay and will open at 10. Child's school will open at 9:20. Sweet. That still works.

9:20--Drop off Child.
9:30--Arrive at campus. Parking lot is so empty that I wonder if there was a subsequent e-mail that I missed saying "J/K about that 10 AM start." I also wondered if anyone had told Buildings and Grounds about this 10 AM opening thing, with first classes at 10:20. Campus walkways are a sheet of ice. Icy rain is still coming down, so I have an umbrella in one hand and a lunchbox in the other, and I realize it is going to be hard to break my fall if I do slip. Luckily, I stay upright. Unfortunately, at least two other faculty in my building were not so lucky.

10:20--Great Works II. First day goes pretty well, from what I can tell.

Lunch and a trip to the library, which goes better than initial trip in.

12:40--Senior Seminar. Small class with six students. At end, one student asks how the Senior Seminar essay compares to grad school essays, because he is thinking of applying. I have an off-the-cuff chat with class about why you should not get an MA in English, but would be better off going in a field like Marketing, Public Relations, Educational Administration, Library Science, Publishing.

2:15-3:15--Office hours. Attempt to solve one young woman's problem about her sophomore seminar. Call Registrar's Office. No answer. Leave message. No call back as of 10 PM last night. Huh.

While I was in my 12:40 class, the official memo went out to faculty: I am the new FYS Director, and three colleagues--1 each from the Communication, Psychology, and Philosophy departments--will be co-coordinators of the Sophomore Interdisciplinary Seminar. I get people stopping by saying congratulations. I also post the news on FB and get lots of "Likes" and positive comments. It esp warms my heart to see so many alumni of the class liking the news and saying sweet things. <3

A little work on notes for evening class.

3:45ish--Home. Rest and read Stephen Greenblatt's Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare.

7:30-10--Grad class: The Modern World. Class is really small at 7 students...but I think it goes reasonably well! Given that I had no sense of what these students already knew or what the preceding course, The Ancient World, was like, this was a relief.

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Weather report is mega-crappy, so off to the supermarket in the morning
To Ex to pack and ship and do computer work
Library
UPS
Home
Mega-crappy weather report turns out to have been wrong, yay
Lesson, in which I get coaching with mixed results, but boy, it's good to have an experienced outside pair of eyes in the room
Some computer work for a friend
Home
Exhausted; z early

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TUESDAY:
8-9 AM--Open session with Provost Candidate #1.
9-11 AM--Office hours. Read an article that in some respects makes the diametric opposite point to the one I am making in my argument.
11:30-12:45--Run my first meeting as FYS Director. It went rather well, especially given that I had been FYS Director for less than 24 hours at this point! I think we have at least three concrete changes that we plan to make emerging out of this meeting.

1ish--Home. Lunch. Before I can even eat, though, Husband is excited to show me our new tv, which arrived while I was at work. This is the first new tv we've had since 1995...and therefore our first flat screen one.
1:40--6 miles on treadmill. Shower.

Briefly took dog outside. It was a beautiful day, so warm. Ice storm Monday, then around the 50s on Tuesday? Crazy.
4:30--Left with Child for dance.
5-8:30--Child dances. I read Greenblatt's Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare.